Where Wild Hyperbole Roam Free

Exactly one year ago I rode a wave of motivation & created this blog. Friends definitively funnier than me joined in & used this space to write god knows what. Over 7,000 people visited, which is a number both comically meager & relatively impressive. I’m almost positive the majority of those clicks were directed to that time Ryan Wells wrote a novella about SyFy Original Movies or when Natty Morrison ranked the numbers 1 to 5 from 1 to 5.

By the fall this budding space for creativity shrank to a monthly post wrapping up the best songs released over a given month – which judging by the stats – nobody gave a shit about. This was both strange and disheartening considering how many conversations I’ve had that went something…no..EXACTLY like this:

Matt: Hi friend, what have you been listening to lately?

Friend: Oh Matt, it’s really difficult to keep up with current music, because unlike you I have obligations to meet where it would be difficult to give the proper attention or effort into digging up current releases. If only there was….

Matt: Fret not, companion! I actually go to the trouble of assembling the freshest of musical content in a streamable, one-click format on my blog!

Friend: What you’re telling me has changed my life. I don’t want to go throwing around a diluted term like “hero” around, because what’s a hero these days? But quite honestly, I’m struggling to find a term that so accurately describes how much your blog is going to change my life from this moment forward.

Me: That’s extremely flattering. Tell your friends!

Friend: I already have. We’re canceling our weekend out on the town to head over to our friend Mark’s. You don’t know mark, but we chose him because he has the largest computer monitor with a relatively decent sound system. Of course he obliged because a monthly recap of music is exactly what he’s been looking for as well. This site is primed for the big time Matt. Prepare yourself.

Flash forward to any given month of Cool Songs playlists drawing roughly 8 clicks total, which I’m pretty sure was just my girlfriend refreshing the page to make me feel better.

So you guys must be fucking ITCHING to see my recap of the top 50+ songs from the entire goddamn year. That’s something you definitely have the time to sit down and digest while listening to the roughly 2 hour playlist.

Soak it in y’all. This is probably the last published piece this space will ever see, because I too have joined the ranks of the obligated.

(Most spaces take the time to throw down a few of their favorites albums of the year as well. This would have been exceedingly difficult considering I spent most of 2013 listening to albums from 2008 & 1998. I really liked these though)

Remember when I made a pledge to supplement this space with fresh new content throughout the month of October?

Well that was a bold-faced lie.

As it tends to do, life has gotten in the way of my beloved domain, and thus it’s time to be honest with myself and anybody left reading this blog.

We’re done here.

I’ll construct a more proper obituary in a post at the end of the year, because there actually will be about 3 more – all of which rounding up a period of time by it’s musical highlights. We’ll do the last two installments of “Cool Songs” along with a Top Album/Tracks of the year roundup.

Smart move by Floyd with the 6-14 demographic largely up for grabs in boxing.

For about the 5th time, I’ll start a post with an apology.

After an August that saw a bit of a renaissance around these parts, we damn near laid egg this in September. If it not for an incredible Natty Morrison piece that had been sitting in the drafts for about a month, we assuredly would have given you no original content for 30 days.

I hereby pledge October will be different.

If you pay attention to this blog at all, you’d know that I always make time for a monthly playlist. This is due in large part to the fact I make these into CDs for when I’m sitting in L.A. traffic. I realize this is a very 2004 move.

Also s/o to my favorite Lafayette, Indiana independent record label, Jurassic Pop, who sent me some shit I didn’t order a couple weeks ago. Since they refuse to comply with my desires and put shit on Soundcloud so I can listen to in my car without paying them, I will embed this fantastic track from Nowhere’s self titled album here.

EDIT: The gentlemen of Nowhere reached out on Twitter with a soundcloud link! As luck would have it, it nestled perfectly into the back half.

(Writer’s Note: I am white. I am not sure if this is a relevant fact, but it is a fact. Do with it what you will.)

I don’t sell drugs. It’s not that I wouldn’t, I just can’t. I don’t believe I have the necessary skill sets to be effective in drug dealing. Dealers need to be tough. They need to be good with money (i.e. good with math). And they need to not do drugs.

I am none of these things.

BUT, I am a lover of hip-hop. The way it sounds, the way it feels…even just the way the artists say certain words inspire a geek-out reaction for me. So…there is an innate, immediate, inexplicable mental reaction that I have from certain songs or albums. It’s always more a fantasy, not even realistic…but it is undeniable.

And that reaction is that it makes me want to sell drugs.

I realize I am treading on dangerous ground here. Rap is often made by black persons. Not always, but fairly often. Additionally, I do not believe the drug culture is specific to any race or creed. Everyone who does drugs loves drugs, and THAT is what drives the drug empire in the world.

But I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that sometimes…sometimes it sounds fucking dope to sell drugs when the said narrative is accompanied by ill beats and a dude who sounds amazingly cool. So. with all that being said, here is my list of the Five Rappers(s) who kinda made me want to sell drugs.

1. Notorious B.I.G.

Holy shit. Just the way his flow fell on the beat sounded like someone counting money. No. Wait. It sounded like one of those money counters. The ones that sounded like a dude shuffling cards. Biggie was effortless. It never seemed like he was breaking a sweat (even though if you know what he looked like, you’d just assume he was sweating, constantly) but he managed to drop a wealth of knowledge on a generation of heads. He was almost shouting, but you simply got the impression he was just calmly stating, “THIS SHIT IS WORTH LISTENING TO.” Also important: He was one of the first rappers to illustrate and live the persona of the internally conflicted. To me, this is an essential writing tactic of a true hip-hop artist. Also, this one time, he said: “You don’t have to say shit/ I’ve been robbing motherfuckers since the slave ship!” That was sick.

Sample tune: “Things Done Changed”

At first, the beat sounds charming, almost happy. But soon – very soon – it becomes apparent that, while things used to be happy, things are indeed not happy.

2. Wu-Tang Clan

Totally not one rapper, but these guys’ rhymes made me want to do shit of which I was totally not capable. This is really one of those groups that didn’t necessarily want to make me sell drugs; it’s never entirely clear whether they support the game that they (mostly) met through. But they DID make me want to be in a gang. Not a real gang. I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve seen quite a bit of the television program “Gangland.” And if that show has taught me only one thing, it’s that white people need an unneccesary amount of definitions for pretty understandable words (Seriously! “The Wire.” I thought you all you honkies watched that!). But if it’s a second thing, it’s that I could not make it in a group that required an application process more complex than, “Question 1: When was the last time you did something for the first time?” But these homies had serious skill, and the beats from RZA have shaped the way I bob my head. Seriously. I fucking love every album from these dudes. Even the ones that kinda suck.

Sample tune: “C.R.E.A.M”

Honestly, this song wasn’t really a pro-dealing cut. But the way Rae says shit like,” A young tooth, rocking the gold tooth and ‘Lo goose, Only way I began to G off was drug loot,” made me want to find my nearest dope house and rob it. Instead, I probably just went to Arby’s. Side note: when I first realized what C.R.E.A.M. stands for, I was sitting in the Sagamore Parkway Payless parking lot and I was like, “HEY GUYS, GUESS WHAT?”

3. Gucci Mane

Just a quick note: “Trap God,” including mixtapes, is Gucci’s 27th studio release. 27th. That is a staggering, staggering, fucking STAGGERING number considering the dude started eight years ago. That is far beyond prolific, even in comparison to music’s greatest contributors. In his first eight years, Elvis recorded and released ten albums. Ten. THAT DUDE IS A BITCH. So what if he was in the army? He was a racist, anyway.

Like Son of Hilljack’s creator, Matt Bailey, I really wasn’t made aware of Gucci until he co-starred in Harmony Korine’s 2012 masterpiece, “Spring Breakers.” But since then, I have found his (for some reason, questionable) flow is the first one that feels like drug dealing. It’s shortened, minimized, gruff, both full of dialect and dialectic, and beautiful to boot. Such a rare artist, Gucci is able to convey a wide array of viewpoints and mindsets. But in the end, “Trap God,” would be an AMAZING soundtrack for a huge coke deal gone right. I do not want a coke deal gone wrong.

Sample tune: “Street Nigga”

This guy is believable. Like, I believe this guy.

4. Snoop Doggy Dogg

Yeah, that’s what I call him. Sorry, but I’m not referring to Snoop, or Snoop Lion, or the new spokesman for Overstock.com. I’m referring to the guy formerly known as the Artist I Used to Give a Shit About. Before he would literally do ANYTHING for money, Calvin Broadus made selling dope sound smooth. It wasn’t shitty and painful, like a piece of Brillo Pad you scratch against your hand before smoking crack, it was beautiful and liquid, like the state of the steel being formed to make the Brillo Pad you would use to smoke crack. He never seemed like the Tony Montana type of dealer, one who would exact precise revenge on any of his enemies. Snoop seemed like the kind of guy who would watch you rip him off, spit a few sick bars and then tell Suge Knight to fucking murder you.

Sample tune: “Deep Cover”

Never has murdering an undercover police officer sounded so fun. I do not support killing police informants, but if I was a guy who did, I probably would support this song. Snoop’s verse is the highlight, by far, and that includes the painstakingly uninteresting opening. So much exposition. Snore. Remember, I don’t support killing officers of the law, ever.

5. Jay-Z

Okay, first off: Fuck Jay-Z. I don’t mean this in a hyperbolic sense. I seriously, realistically and honestly think Jay is a fucking joke. Okay, yeah, “Reasonable Doubt,” is a dope, dope, dope album. Even parts of, “The Blueprint,” are great (not the KRS album; THAT whole album is fire). But this guy has not tried in probably ten years. And yet, despite his reliance on a stupid fucking laugh and his tongue twist (you know, like, “Tiggity-tongue twist, I diggity-done that”), Shawn Carter has somehow gone from shitty Brooklyn coke dealer to being biggest rap star on the globe, married to Beyonce, worth $500 million, and owning the Nets. This makes me insanely jealous, and who the fuck wants the Nets? No one, that’s who. But this rags-to-riches story makes petty drug dealing seem worth being a goddamned imposter. Get off that throne, Jay-Z. No one likes you. You straight up ruined, “Suit ‘n Tie.”

Let’s put August in the distant fucking rearview, please. That month just didn’t cut it for me.

A Recap of The Month That Was:

Some of you got up in arms about some fairly predictable shit : Starlet kicks off adulthood by pushing the boundaries of her sexuality and experimenting with drugs. Then again, the uproar was pretty predictable in itself. Keep fighting that good fight people…

College Football happened, and I shouldn’t try to escape it this time. Personally, I’m not much of a College Football fan, but 90% of the people I follow on social media love the fucking game, so I was completely bombarded this weekend with unwanted commentary. Well, maybe not all of it wasn’t unwanted. Here’s a friendly reminder of what exists in the south:

Sweet jesus.

A very solid month musically, with one of the better albums of the year dropping in Doris from Earl Sweatshirt. Kendrick Lamar claimed himself the King of New York on his verse in “Control” and the only fallout was a sea of journalists producing paltry quotes from rappers not yet too annoyed to address it. This playlist is a strong one, with a predictably summery vibe that might just be perfect for that Labor Day BBQ tomorrow. Maybe the best track of the bunch I yanked off because of audio issues, but here’s all 45 seconds of it, compliments of Flying Lotus and Thudercat.

I spent this past weekend covering Lollapalooza and spent a lot of time by myself, since tickets are too expensive for my broke friends, and my tastes are too 2-Chainz-y for my journo friends. So as the oddly alone smoked-out dude, I conducted some highly thoughtful surveying of the crowds. At times conversations were had. It was fine! Here’s some of what I saw and what it was like. It will be exactly like you were there, trust me. Continue reading →

Another one in the books, and a particularly eventful one due to my reinstated unemployment. Everybody wins when Matt doesn’t need to put on pants until he starts getting paranoid about life still existing outside his front door and ventures to the coffee shop (To get attacked by a fucking dog).

What’s even stranger than our recent bout of productivity is the fact people are actually reading this shit. Some of you guys even repost these links on Facebook and Twitter and, on behalf of all of us, that is the coolest favor ever. Thank You.

Best Thing That Happened in July

– BFF’s of this blog Jurassic Pop put out the cassette release of Mac DeMarco from Russian Recording in Bloomington, IN, and it very much blew up. They were on Pitchfork and Spin and a bunch of other reputable domains. If you’re not familiar with their catalog, I recommend listening to every single fucking release. I’m not kidding you, they’re all incredible.

Shep Houghton

The 102 year old Hougton, not to be confused with the Shep who stood in for Curly in The Three Stooges or Shep “Bird Dog” Hundley, the noted character actor of post-WWII “C” movies who often portrayed helpful immigrant Italian Ice vendors, can usually be found wandering around whatever iteration of the Silent Disco is set up making sure just such confusion is avoided. “Who am I?” “What in the hell are you kids dancing to with those earmuffs on your heads?” and “Do you know where I’m from?” this self-absorbed fuckwad prods incessantly. Yeah, we get it dude. You’re THE Shep Houghton. We’ve all seen Flying Down to Rio. “Are you my nephew?” Jeesh, get a big head much? We’re not ALL your nephew, buddy.

Dickie Moore

One would expect Moore, the 87 year old child star of 1932’s Oliver Twist, to be far less spry than he’s shown in his appearances at 11 of the summer’s 13 largest fests, but after a long battle with lupis/crone’s disease/torso cancer his regular physician recommended him to the renowned Dr. Argus Gomes, who specializes in the “fuck it they’re dying” philosophy of medicine and gave Moore access to an unlimited amount of prescription drugs. Since that time Moore has hit the festival circuit, rebranding himself as Dickie the Drug Fairy, and festival goers have lived in constant fear of his prancing, emaciated frame skipping past and slipping an anonymous handful of pills into their $11 dollar beers, his terrifying, massively globular pupils making eye contact with their’s ever so briefly before he guffaws and disappears into a crowd.

The Hologram of Minnie Madern Fiske

LiveNation’s decision to have a digitally created version of the long deceased Maddern Fiske introduce Sigur Rós at last year’s BadWarlock!Fest was initially mocked after the hologram veered off script, announcing, “I’d like to welcome Sugar Rose to the stage. They seem like very nice young men, but I really don’t get their music. In my day we had simpler musicians who wrote songs people could sing along to, like Cole Porter and Irv.. ZAPBZZKRRRr1010001”, but after a reworking in which developers gave her Christina Hendricks’ holographic boobs and a pair of Warby Parker shades, the Tess Of The D’Urbervilles star has been a ubiquitous presence at this summer’s round of festivals, showing up on stage with everyone from Drake (“One time for the homie DJ Screw!”) to The Gaslight Anthem (“Let’s get ready to rock the fuck out! And don’t forget to pick up some of the refreshing new Mountain Dew Mauve after the show!”).

Lupita Tovar

She’s at The Shins show hollering that the CIA put a tracking device in her titanium shin replacements. She’s at the Belle & Sebastian show asking if you knew that Belle was an undocumented immigrant and Sebastian was a close personal friend of Rachel Maddow. She’s at the Sky Ferreira show wailing that the holocaust was a hoax. She’s – Hey! Goddamnit Dickie Moore! Fucker just sprinted by here and.. Fuck did he get my drink? Uh where was I, um right – Not sure if it’s the three hits of acid she had for lunch or just standard decagenarian lashing out at a world that’s long since passed her by (it’s both, plus late stage dementia), but we’d all be a lot happier if you would just chiilllllllllllll (die).

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle

There was a time when Fatty Arbuckle fandom was limited solely to hardcore comedy heads, who, going through their inevitable Bob Hope Stage, came across the story that Arbuckle gave Hope his initial break in the entertainment industry and dove headfirst into what they deemed to be “slapstick source material” or, in the parlance of the trade, “slourcestick”. Sadly, this time has ended, with the full blown meme-ification of this stout silent film star making it impossible to show up to any summer music festival without running into at least a dozen people sporting t-shirts emblazoned with his headshot, hoping to affect the image of a cultural outsider much in the way that (often, the same) people pretended to “get” Kate Bush or be really into that Atoms for Peace album. The proper response when encountering any one of these clowns is to ask, “Oh, you must have loved the ol’ Fatster in 1909’s Ben’s Kid, right?” to which they’ll respond, “Loved it. Totally one of my top 5 Arbuckle faves” to which you’ll then rerespond “Ha! No existing copies of Ben’s Kid exist, obviously, as early film stock was chemically volatile and it was common for prints to be lost in fires or decompose in storage. Fuck you.”

Rudolph Valentino’s Heavily Decayed Corpse

No one’s quite sure how the putrefied remains of this 1920’s sex symbol continually keep continuing to uh, appear, at the, the star of The Sheik and, hey! Is that you Drug Fairy? You crazy son of a bitch get over here! Refill? Does the pope shit in the woods? The star of The Son of the Sheik and, well he’s dead. Like Duncan Sheik. Or The Iron.. He’s just, a corpse what were the blue ones were again? Glue ones… a CORPSE is HERE that’s FUCKED UP

Diana Serra “Baby Peggy” Cary

BAY-BE PEG-GY. BAY-BE PEG-GEE. BAYY-BEE. PEEHHHH-GE. HOW CAN IT BE A BABY AND A PEGGY AT THE SAME TIME WHO MAKES THESE THINGS UP LIKE A HORRIFYING PERSON NAMED… PEGGY WHO IS ALSO …A GIANT BABY IN LIKE A BIB OOOO GODD O GODDD FUUUUUCK ME THIS BAND IS LIKE A WHOLE BAND OF GIANT BABIES AND HOW IS IT THAT BABIES AND OLD PEOPLE ARE BOTH SO WRINKLEY DO YOU THINK THEYRrrrrrr aa……………………….

Nobody enjoys a good internet rabbit hole like myself. It’s generally common for me to climb into bed around sunrise after a hard night’s work of investigative journalism, with topics ranging from Kobe Bryant’s rap career to Martin Bashir being a dick to Michael Jackson to the recent death of Michael Hastings. One hole that is particularly gaping is the growing faction of of theorists who believe there’s some demonic shit going down right in front of our faces. To understand how to connect these (mostly fictitious) reference points, one should be familiar with the term “Illuminati”. Well, at least vaguely familiar. For the sake of saving you from that rabbit hole (just dont, it’s not even an especially fun one), we’ll give you this simple translation: Illuminati = Satan. And because there are various cross sections of satanism, let’s all just picture the familiar looking dude with the horns.

If it wasn’t made abundantly clear by that opening paragraph, I do not subscribe to such beliefs. I will say, however, that it makes for some positively enjoyable reading material. Here’s the tip of the iceberg on my top 6 (because, of course).